Thread: Ripping Wet Jarrah Question

I should of said.

I'm thinking of the ripping being done on a Table saw , I have a 5HP Wolfenden Rip saw with a blade size of something over 20" It could be 24" .
Its in storage ATM and I haven't put a tape on it for a year.

Ripping Dry US Oak on a smaller table saw and it bows like crazy. Some woods do and some dont.
Not sure if being wet changes things . And from the dry Jarrah I have machined the timber seems good .

Rob

I've always thought that spring when ripping is more a product of tension in the material, not whether it is wet or dry. I could well be wrong. At least if you rip it wet it can be sticker out and weighted down till it drys. When I used to rip a lot of Silky Oak for boxes it would spring open or closed, no real pattern. I'd close sticker it and weight it down for a few weeks and it mostly come up pretty much pin straight, light joint, drum sand the other side, good to go.

Agree with above. Just be sure you use the riving knife to avoid kickback if it does close up.


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It will vary from piece to piece as usually it is the release of tension in the timber that causes the bowing one way or the other as stated cut and sticker it hopefully all will be good and you will get a good recovery rate.
Regards Rod.

Rob
Pretty much the only sleepers cut down here these days are destined for hardware stores and nurseries. Consequently they are cut out of low grade timber that is not suitable for structural purposes. I would want to have a look at them to check they are OK before buying. If the sleepers are straight I would expect they wound come off the saw straight. In the old mills the man tailing out would keep a wooden wedge in his pocket to push into the kerf if it looked like closing up and pinching the blade.
Tony

Thanks for above comments .
Ill have to check if the saw has a riving knife now thinking of the power and blade size . The comment brought back memories of a milling man telling me of the ease a big rip saw threw a piece of timber approaching sleeper size at him. The wedge is a good idea too.

Im a long way off doing this job . Just sussing out the possibilities atm .

Tony , thanks , I started thinking about the ebay sleepers and looking more closely at the pictures ( they supplied good pictures didn't they !)
I'm wondering now if in fact its either the low grade Jarrah you speak of or is it Karri or another substitute ?? Looks nothing like any Jarrah colour Ive seen here before , its normally a bit of a deeper red like a glass of Red wine look . And it does look like the colour of Karri Ive seen . Does the low grade Jarrah stuff look like this ? All the Jarrah Ive handled though has been Dry and most of it Old and dry by many years. But that's the same colour as the new dry stuff that Ive seen in timber yards


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Rob

Rob
Im from Tassie so no Jarrah down here. Was making a general comment as Tasrail use pre-stressed concrete these days (I tihink). Looking at the top sleeper in your second photo the grain is wandering from one edge of the sleeper to the other which backs up my suspicions. Although there were some good looking sleepers in there as well. If you could pick through them you may well get some that are suitable for gates.

10 years ago a local mill was taking a lot hardwood that did mot meet specifications for structural grade and was milling pallet timber. With plastic taking over from timber pallets that market slowly contracted and am not sure if the mill is still operating. The top sleeper mentioned above would be no more than pallet grade and I expect it would fail to meet spec as a sleeper on a rail line.
Tony

Originally Posted by tony_A

Rob
Im from Tassie so no Jarrah down here. Was making a general comment as Tasrail use pre-stressed concrete these days (I tihink).

Ahhh I see , Missed that .


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Yeah If It goes ahead I would be going to pick the wood and make up my mind then .

Rob

"Sleepers" seem to be getting smaller day by day. The real ones I used to get were more like 250 X 100, straight grain, no heartwood. It must be inflation or something.

I scavenged a trailer load of celery top pine sleepers a couple of years ago after one of the last sections of the West Coast Line was upgraded. Sleepers are at least 150 mm thick. Believe they used celery top as it is more resistant to rot than many other timbers. Even the best of them were showing signs of rot and the worst were completely useless for anything other than garden edging. A bloke I used to work with used to cut (mill) celery top sleepers in the bush with a chainsaw as a young man in the late 1960's or early 70's. Used a Stihl 090 and would rip the tree into sleepers where it fell. He was a very strong man and described it as very hard work.
Celery top is now highly sought by the local boat builders and in fairly limited supply. There was km after km of railway line built on celery sleepers that now seems a little wasteful. Interestingly a local company has started salvaging timber from the flooded Hydro lakes in Tassie. This has probably added as much as another 20 years of supply to the likes of myrtle and celery. See attached link for their story.
Hydro Wood - Landline - ABC

Good story !
Ive been hearing about that wood by watching one of the makers on Instagram using it.

Ive been a bit slack describing the wood Old Hilly . Its actually listed as

Jarrah Posts F*Structural 125 x 75 X 3 Post Fence Class 2 Hardwood

Not Sleepers . I was looking through listings of Redgum Sleepers at the same time .

Rob